Read Online Mahu Fire by Neil Plakcy - Free Book Online

potential!”
    “Come on,” I said.
    Gunter looked better than usual himself. He’s about six-three, lean and gawky, with a buzz-shaved head. The first time I met him, at a gay bar in Waikiki, I thought he looked like a giraffe. But the tuxedo had worked its wonders on him as well. All gawkiness had disappeared, and he seemed suave and debonair. His short hair made him look European, but a little exotic as well.
    “What’s this?” he asked, fingering my tie. “A clip-on bow tie? I can’t be seen with a man wearing a clip-on. Fortunately I have an extra one inside.” He tugged on my hand.
    “Gunter, we’re running late already.”
    “Then we’ll just be a little later.”
    His house was sparse, almost Oriental. No clutter, no books or magazines or sports equipment strewn around, like you find at my place. He led me back into his bedroom, and I started wondering if we had enough time for some quick fun before the party. The answer, of course, was no, but that didn’t stop me thinking. I’d been going through a sexual dry spell, too busy to troll for dates in bars or online, and Gunter had been busy himself with a series of Filipino gardeners at the condo where he worked as a security guard.
    “Take that thing off,” he said, rummaging in one of his bureau drawers. I took off the tie and put it in my pocket. “And take your jacket off, too, and put your collar up.”
    He turned back to me with a long strip of black fabric in his hand. “Here we go.” He stepped up close to me, his face almost at mine, and started fiddling with the tie. “It’s harder to do this on somebody else,” he said. “Let me get behind you.”
    “Get thee behind me, Satan,” I said.
    “Oh, you tease.”
    I felt his body close to me, and sensed a familiar stiffening in my groin, a sensation I resolved to ignore. Then I realized he was feeling the same thing. What a damn shame that we were on a schedule. “We have a dinner to go to, Gunter,” I said. “No time for fun.”
    He finished the tie with a flourish. “There you go,” he said, turning me around so I faced the mirror. “Doesn’t that look better?”
       
    Gunter and I met my high school friend, Terri Gonsalves, as we walked from the parking garage toward the party. She wore a low-cut, short black silk dress with a single strand of pearls. On her right wrist she wore the emerald bracelet that had been her husband’s last gift to her.
    I told her I thought she looked lovely. I knew it was the first time she’d been out to a big party since her husband had died, and I was sure she was feeling melancholy.
    “Since I don’t have a man of my own, you’ll both have to be my escorts.” She hooked her arms around Gunter and me and we strolled down the street. With a pair of strappy black high heels, she was almost as tall as I was.
    The evening was clear and dry, despite the smell of smoke, and beyond the lights of downtown I could make out a few dim stars above. We walked through a neighborhood of one- and two-story offices and stores, a travel agency with vertical columns of Chinese-language ads next door to a place selling medical uniforms. I asked her about Cathy’s application to her great-aunt’s foundation, and she promised she’d look into it.
    The sounds of a jazz piano floated toward us as we approached the offices of the Hawai’i Marriage Project, glowing with light. The two-story stucco building had a big open office on the first floor, where Robert worked. There was a bathroom at the rear and a door that led out to an open lanai. Up on the second floor, there were two offices, one looking to the street and the other to the back. The front room was used for meetings and storage, and Sandra Guarino used the back office.
    When we walked in, Harry and Arleen were standing around Robert’s desk talking with him. Arleen, a tiny pixie of a woman with dark hair and Japanese features, was holding her young son Brandon, who had already fallen asleep.